The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche by M. L. Longworth

Author:M. L. Longworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

I’ll say. After he left, Sandrine was even more fidgety than she usually was. She kept checking her cell phone and insisted we get outside and take an early evening walk. As we started down the drive, we came across Léa, who was sitting under an oak tree, reading. “You’re not reading in our attic today?” I asked. Léa had been visiting us more frequently as of late, often spending hours at a time in the attic. Sandrine thought it odd, and I thought it completely normal. I did the same at Léa’s age, only not in an attic, as we lived in a Parisian apartment, but in the pantry.

“Maman said I had to get some fresh air,” Léa replied.

We chatted for a bit, and Sandrine told Léa that we had taken the photograph, the one with me and Maria Callas, into Aix to get framed. In fact, the framer’s shop was next to the hospital, and we explained that we had been in to see Michèle, whose condition had not changed. I asked Léa if she knew of any good walks in the area, and she jumped up and called to her mother, who was walking between the barn and the house, carrying what looked like beakers full of red wine. Hélène yelled hello and gave Léa permission to accompany us. In fact, it was the other way around. Léa hurried down the road and said to follow her. Instructed us, really. We must have made a curious trio: the old writer, whose apparitions I was now convinced stemmed from guilt; the short-skirted, fast-talking housekeeper, who may or may not have pushed my fellow writer down the stairs; and a little girl leading us along.

We walked in single formation when we got onto the main road, which isn’t that busy, but, still, when those village boys drive, they drive quickly. A taxi approached, leaving the village toward Aix, and as it drove by we stopped walking and, naturally, watched it go by. An old woman wearing sunglasses and a large straw hat sat in the backseat. “The blind lady,” Sandrine said.

“It would be terrible to be blind,” Léa said, “but worse to be deaf.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Not to be able to see your parents?” Sandrine added. “Or see flowers or your mother’s vineyards?”

“But it would be worse,” Léa answered, “if I couldn’t hear their voices.” I now knew the Paulik family better, and was aware of Léa’s musical gifts. Neither Sandrine nor I argued, and we let the conversation slide into other, less melancholic, subjects.

“Are we almost there?” I joked after about fifteen minutes.

Léa ignored me and turned up a dirt road that led southeast of the village. We obediently followed. I was going to make another joke, about the blind leading the blind, but it was corny, and, besides, Léa wasn’t blind. She knew exactly where she was going.

The road twisted and turned around two or three old stone farmhouses and one garish, recently built yellow stucco bungalow.

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